Château Grand Boise / Provence Sainte-Victoire

Château Grand Boise / Provence Sainte-Victoire

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A Fastidious Operation On All Levels – A Jewel Estate From An Exciting Part Of Provence

With our eye on this producer for some time, we are delighted to have finally been able to secure an allocation of these amazing wines. With first recorded history of winegrowing here in 1610, the 500 hectare property comprises 40 hectares of some 77 plots of organically grown vines (certified), over marble, limestone and red clay soils, between 300 – 600 metres altitude, making this estate the highest in Southern Provence. The diversity here of soil and aspect/altitude gives enormous scope for this estate to blend and craft complex and detailed wines, assisted by a state of the art winery replete with concrete egg fermenters.

Sainte-Victoire is a jaw-droppingly beautiful part of Provence and raises some of the region’s most distinctive wines due to its high limestone content in its soils, and the sun reflection from Mont Sainte Victoire. Grand Boise are a leading producer often used by the Provence Wine Council as a benchmark of this appellation’s style. Rosé production at this estate is 50%, bucking the region’s norm of 90%+ at many addresses.

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Magical rosé, emblematic of the Sainte Victoire appellation. There’s a delicacy typical to these wines, an almost umami quality running under the palate, around humming acidity and a slatey mineral feel. There’s also a tropical fruit character at play, think guava skins, alongside watermelon, gooseberries, white pepper and grapefruit. Distinctive, long, elegant and wonderfully complex.

There’s no Sainte Victoire appellation permitted for whites, hence the labelling of Provence. This comes from a plot grown at 450 metres, a trio of blocks which face north and deliver fruit of a pronounced saline character. This pulpy white shows lemon peel, white flowers and fennel, maintaining a lovely tension and finishing long and briny. An excellent seafood wine, and certainly perkier and more complex than many Provence whites.

Bright as a button, a contemporary, clean and fresh style, atypical to the many rustic, saline and garrigue driven reds of the region. We’re reticent to use the word ‘modern’ as this often implies ‘oak monster’, but it certainly has an up to the minute feel in the ‘freshness and drinkability’ school. The Grenache component is actually unoaked due to the natural fruit tannins, with the Syrah and Cabernet receiving 12 months in new 500L casks. Dense of fruit, with blackberries, black currants and cherries folded through the palate, it’s a fine style with great length underpinned by velvety tannins. With many Provence growers seeking recognition for their reds in a sea of rosé, this is a style which could well capture the imagination.

As good as rosé gets, and whilst not cheap, a relative bargain compared to the top producers of Bandol, or Garrus, the flagship of Whispering Angel. From the estate’s best high grown plots and fermented in a combination of stainless steel and 500L oak casks, the wine is aged on fine lees for 5 months in 500L casks before bottling.

Naturally, hugely complex and long. Wild strawberries, violets, orange peel, saffron, plum and raspberry flavours build across the palate, with the wine remaining fresh and cleansing in the mouth. Herbs round out a cool and crisp finish, absolutely a style for creative food matching for dishes such as duck, game birds, shellfish, pork belly and plenty more.

WARNINGUnder the Liquor Control Reform Act 1998 it is an offence;
To supply alcohol to a person under the age of 18 years (Penalty exceeds $17,000)
For a person under the age of 18 years to purchase or receive liquor (Penalty exceeds $700)